Advanced Sci-fi Civilisations Too Stupid To Really Exist Ep.21 - The Separatists (Star Wars)

I can't believe I'm defending Separatists, but Sidious is partially to blame here.

I have to put here that Sidious is the main reason why the Separatist failed, because they were never supposed to succeed in the first place. They were solely a boogyman to provide the springboard for Palpatine. If Palpatine was out of the picture, the CIS likely would have crushed the Republic in a fight.

Imagine losing a war when your soldiers dont get tired, dont get hurt, dont need food or water, dont get ill, and can be built in minutes.

Fun fact, Dooku was originally supposed to speak during his death, but Christopher Lee said that Dooku was not the type to bargain or beg when he was about to die so they changed it to his surprised look at Palpatine’s betrayal instead

Y’know the idea that Mace’s reflection of the force lighting causing brain damage to Sidious would explain a lot

The best lesson you can take from The Separatist is how easy it is for projects meant to challenge corruption to become vehicles for someone else’s corruption.

About General Grievous, he's actually supposed to be a brilliant strategist on top of the jedi hunter with highest body count. The 2002 cartoon made this clear and the separatists achieved many victories against the republic thanks to him. The 3D cartoon decided to turn him alongside every single separatist droid into babbling buffoons and nothing but comic reliefs.

I love how he described Palpatine as someone he's thrown tomatoes at for "at least" two videos, implying there's a possibility he's done it more and simply can't remember.

The B1s feel like they where designed for basic labour and the Trade Federation decided to just give them a blaster and gave them a battle program that was contracted to the lowest bidder.

I'm sure others have already commented this, but Grievous's hatred of Jedi predate the Shuttle crash. He hates them because he lead his people in a war against an insectoid species from a neighboring planet that regularly pillaged and enslaved his people. Once they started winning, the Insectoids ran to the republic and said the Kaleesh attacked them unprovoked. The Republic sided with the Insectoids, ordering the Kaleesh to stand dowm and enforcing the order by Jedi, put a blockade/trade embargo on the Kaleesh, causing most of the planet to starve, and forcing him to basically sell himself as a mercenary to low biders so he could try and keep black market trade going to support his planet. Basically, the Republic and Jedi Punished and Murderered (via imposed famine) his people for standing up to their oppressors, giving him justified hatred toward both institutions.

To be honest Clone wars 2008 retcons a lot of lore and seperatists in the EU were actually more threatening, especially during the battle of Jabiim which caused the republic huge losses

This is one of the few moments where the faction being so dumb is actively the point. Sidious wanted a threat to unite everyone under the Republic and, eventually, under him. As we see in Episode 3, once everyone united under him and he began the creation of the Galactic Empire, he obliterated the CIS and sent Vader to kill its leaders.

To my knowledge the CIS had the Jedi spread out thin across the galaxy and were able to endlessly replace their droids and starships. They were winning the battles only to lose the war when all of the droids were ordered shut down, leaving the handful of organics fighting for them to be thrown into a 180 situation...

The CIS were the Rebel Alliance without plot armor. The issues the Outer Rim had against the Republic were very real, but what could have been a legitimate movement was hijacked by the Sith and greedy industrialists.

Another thing to note is that the corporations within the Separatists would actively withhold schematics and plans for some of their weapons and vehicles in order to maintain profits. This is why vehicles like the Defoliator tank and Super Tanks were never mass produced. You can't exactly fight effectively when internal factions focus on profit over maximizing combat efficiency.

Interestingly, the main reason for grievous being in the position he was in is because he was just the best way for Sheev to fuel the republics Xenophobia. He’s an Alien robot cyborg wielding Jedi weapons slaughtering his way through the mid rim. Dooku wasn’t the face of the confederacy for most people, grievous was. So ofc after the fall of the republic they used grievous as propaganda for to further turn the GE human centric

I really hope we'll see you rip into the Galactic Republic as well some day. They are more than deserving. Also, still hoping you'll one day start a series talking about the Sci-Fi civs/villains that you actually think aren't dumb as hell.

16:30 One thing I should mention here, the Separatists did not build the Droidekas, they are not related at all to the other droid soldiers. The Trade fedaration was buying them from the Colicoids, a race of non-humanoid Outer Rim aliens known for two things, being amoral arms traders and eating the flesh of sapient beings (including other Colicoids); even the Hutts are afraid of them. It stands to reason these droids are very expensive and the cowardly Separatist leaders aren't anxious to haggle further with such beings, who thankfully, are a neutral faction.

I believe the reason for The Geonosians being immune to Jedi Mind Tricks is because they operate on a hive mind

Nute Gunray's loyalty makes sense as he owed his position to Palpatine arranging the deaths of his former cohorts in the Trade Federation. Combined with his natural cowardice it creates an easy sunken cost fallacy for him to stay with Palpatine.